Public Whip Count

December 27, 2007

Arrested on his own petard

Posted by: Chris

The blog run by Immigration Equality included an interesting tidbit about a heterosexual couple facing criminal charges because the man was helping his Mongolian girlfriend stay in the U.S. illegally. It's unusual to see a hetero facing felony charges for harboring an illegal, much less see it in the news, but the man in this relationship was also a top investigator with Citizen & Immigration Services, previously known as Immigration & Naturalization Services, or INS.

Authorities said Lloyd Miner, an internal affairs chief for U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services, knew that his girlfriend, Tsomorlig Batjargal, a native of Mongolia, was an illegal immigration and helped to obtain fake identifications to hide her immigration status. Miner, 49, faces a maximum of 25 years in prison. He has been on unpaid leave since December 2006.

Minor's attorney claims he didn't know his girlfriend was illegal, even though he paid for a plane ticket to fly her to Washington state to get a driver's license. “This is ‘boy meets girl, boy falls in love with girl, and boy asks her to move in with him,’ ” said Minor's attorney. “There’s no crime in falling in love.”

If anything, Minor's crime here was one of stupidity. As gay couples in binational relationships know all too well, Minor could have solved his girlfriend's immigration problems with a quick trip to the justice of peace. Once married, Batjargal would have been golden -- or green-carded, at least.

For those of us forced to live in exile from the U.S. because we choose not to violate immigration laws, Minor's tale is more cruel than sad.